Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Latin American Politics and Society
  4. Volume 55
Journal Home
Refine listing

Refine listing

Access:
Publication date:

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Volume 55 - Winter 2013

Contents

Page 2 of 4

Research Note

  • Scholarly Research on U.S.-Latin American Relations: Where Does the Field Stand?

  • Mariano E. Bertucci
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 119-142

  • This article draws on a new dataset to depict the scope, objectives, and methods of research in the field of U.S.-Latin American relations over the past quarter-century. The key findings are that the study of U.S.-Latin American relations focuses largely on foreign policy analysis, is mainly descriptive, relies overwhelmingly on qualitative methods, and is fairly detached from the main research trends in international relations. In light of this assessment, the article emphasizes the need to pay more attention to issues of theory development and explanation in this subfield of international relations.

Research Article

  • From Collectivism to Capitalism: Neoliberalism and Rural Mobilization in Nicaragua

  • Lynn R. Horton
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 119-140
    • Article
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

  • This article draws on longitudinal, ethnographic data gathered in rural Nicaragua over a two-decade period to examine the ideological and political implications of neoliberalism in the prefigurative, grassroots stages of social mobilization. It contrasts divergent path-dependent processes of accommodation and resistance to neoliberalism as Nicaraguan peasants have moved from collectivism to individual farming, with an emphasis on interpretive processes. This study explores how market processes both serve as an external grievance and operate internally in rural communities to reconfigure rural social relations and individual and collective identities. It also seeks to develop concepts and interpretations that may be applied more broadly to analyze links between deepening market processes and the forms and content of social movement responses to deteriorating economic conditions.

  • Why No Mayan Party? Indigenous Movements and National Politics in Guatemala

  • Kevin Pallister
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 117-138

  • Unlike indigenous social movements in several other Latin American countries, Mayan movements in Guatemala have not formed a viable indigenous-based political party. Despite the prominence of the Mayan social movement and a relatively open institutional environment conducive to party formation, indigenous groups have foregone a national political party in favor of a more dispersed pattern of political mobilization at the local level. This article argues that the availability of avenues for political representation at the municipal level, through both traditional political parties and civic committees, and the effects of political repression and violence have reinforced the fragmentation and localism of indigenous social movements in Guatemala and prevented the emergence of a viable Mayan political party. The result has been a pattern of uneven political representation, with indigenous Guatemalans gaining representation in local government while national political institutions remain exclusionary.

  • Disasters as Crisis Triggers for Critical Junctures? The 1976 Guatemala Case

  • Vincent T. Gawronski, Richard Stuart Olson
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 133-149

  • This article focuses on the 1976 Guatemala earthquake disaster as a possible crisis trigger, in a relatively strict application of the critical juncture analytical approach. It expands to include the broader question of what conditions might cause disasters to trigger crises that open critical junctures for nation-states. The research concludes that the 1976 Guatemala disaster led to a high degree of community self-organizing and alliance-building across Guatemala, which the Guatemalan national security state at that time perceived as a fundamental crisis requiring a response. This reaction generated significant debate and policy conflict within the state; the resulting decision was massively repressive violence, with legacies that continue to this day. Another conclusion is that strictly applied, critical juncture analysis can untangle often very complicated disaster postimpact emergency, recovery, and reconstruction situations.

  • Survey Research and Social Class in Venezuela: Evaluating Alternative Measures and Their Impact on Assessments of Class Voting

  • Samuel Handlin
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 141-167

  • The ascendance of the left in Latin America has sparked new interest in the politicization of social class. What factors should scholars consider in choosing and constructing measures of social class in survey research? To what degree can measurement affect results? This article evaluates several common measures in terms of validity and reliability. It then shows that alternative measures produce strikingly different results when examining class voting in Venezuela’s 2006 presidential election. Simple measures of household income or wealth, which fare poorly in validity assessment, suggest minimal levels of class voting. Various socioeconomic scales that also incorporate data on education and, in some cases, weights for household composition, suggest very high levels of class voting. The article provides guidelines for evaluating measures and illuminates the debate on class voting in Venezuela. Scholars have reached contradictory conclusions while using different measures, but the decisive role of measurement has gone unrecognized.

Policy Issues

  • Changing Lenses: Conflict Analysis and Mexico’s “Drug War”

  • Ami C. Carpenter
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 139-160

  • U.S. policy toward Mexico has been influenced by a “drug war” frame that has left little rhetorical and operational room for creative multisectoral strategies to stem the violence and address its causes. This article proposes conflict analysis, a lens for viewing conflict that brings into focus a multilevel, integrative diagnosis of the violence in Mexico and supports recent evolutions in Plan Mérida toward a more holistic peacebuilding approach.

  • Civilians and the Military in Latin America: The Absence of Incentives

  • Thomas C. Bruneau
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 143-160

  • This article argues that civil-military relations should be conceptualized not only in terms of democratic civilian control but also for effectiveness in implementing a spectrum of roles and missions. It also argues that achieving effectiveness requires institutional development as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Currently in Latin America, the focus in civil-military relations remains exclusively on civilian control. While there is a growing awareness of the need for analysis beyond asserting control over the armed forces, so far nobody has proposed or adopted a broader analytical framework. This article proposes such a framework, and employs it to analyze differences among four major South American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. The explanation for the differences identified by use of the framework is found in the incentives of civilian elites in Chile and Colombia, who have recognized serious threats to national security and defense.

Research Article

  • Identity and Foreign Policy: Canada as a Nation of the Americas

  • Jean-Philippe Thérien, Gordon Mace
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 150-168

  • Using Canada's relations with the Americas as a case study, this article seeks to better understand the link between identity and foreign policy. It argues that there is a gap between the Canadian government's recent efforts to construct a state identity increasingly turned toward the Americas and Canadians' national identity as it is expressed through public opinion. It concludes that the most plausible explanation for this gap probably has to do with Canada's European cultural heritage. The analysis shows that the projection of national identity into foreign policy is a much more complex process than the projection of state identity.

Critical Debates

  • Rethinking Police Violence in Brazil: Unmasking the Public Secret of Race

  • Jan Hoffman French
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 161-181

  • In Brazilian cities, perhaps the most disturbing criminal activity is the violence perpetrated by police officers themselves. This article is an invitation and a provocation to reconsider social scientific thinking about police violence in Brazil. Illustrated by a court decision from a Northeastern city, in which a black man won a case against the state for being falsely arrested and abused by a black police officer on the grounds of racism, this article investigates three paradoxes: Brazilians fear both crime and the police; black police beat black civilians; and government officials disavow responsibility by stigmatizing the police on racial grounds. It then proposes an alternative reading of these paradoxes that opens the possibility for rethinking police reform and argues that democratization in Brazil is deeply intertwined with the future of its darkest-skinned citizens.

Book Reviews

Page 2 of 4